Chinese visitors hit 12% of total for 12 months to Oct

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Pete Faulkner - Tourism, Uncategorized

As the ABS slowly gets to terms with the change in methodology for arrivals and departures cards (see here for details) today sees the release of short term arrivals and departures data for October.

This shows arrivals at new highs of just under 600,000 for the month and over 6.8 million for the past 12 months. Arrivals were up 9.5% from a year ago while the annual running total is 8.4% higher. As has been the case for some time, it was China that saw the outstanding growth. Chinese arrivals now account for over 12% of all arrivals, for the 12 month period to Oct, for the first time ever. They were up 13.6% from a year ago at a total of 78,400 visitors in Oct.

Departures also continue to grow (although at a much slower pace) with a total of 756,500 Aussies leaving the country on a short term trip in Oct. This is 2% higher than a year ago. The total for the 12 months to Oct stood at a new record of 9.04 million. This means that the annual rate of growth in departures has slowed from about 15% five years ago to just 4.8% now (the slowest rate of annual growth since Mar 2013).